2,688 research outputs found

    "Pushing the Envelope” a modeling-based approach to the development of organic, responsive architectural form

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    This paper tests design procedures for the development of complex, organic architectural forms. It illustrates a postgraduate student design process, implementing a development sequence based on the intelligent manipulation of architectural envelopes using a variety of existing modeling tools and emerging digital techniques. These stages of development respond to imposed spatial and environmental constraints. The tests began with full-scale modeling of small segments. The major constraints at this stage were spatial requirements and the physical characteristics of materials. The forms derived from the bending properties of prestressed green timber and the dimensions of shingle cladding. This was followed by digital 3D modeling using common commercial applications. At this stage initial models were derived from a traditional space requirement brief. The envelopes for these activities were then manipulated to respond to the spatial limitations imposed by surrounding buildings. This digital modeling process metaphorically "pushed the limits” as vertices of the envelope model were stretched and shifted to achieve a perceived "fit” between the two sets of spatial dimensions. The spatially manipulated geometry was then imported into Ecotect, an environmental analysis package. As an example, the envelope's morphology and cladding material options on the acoustic qualities of the surrounding space were tested. The improved geometry was then imported into a Virtual Reality room, in which the spatial experience was simulated in presentations to the design team and potential occupants. This room utilized six projectors to create an immersive experience to users wearing stereoscopic goggles, and moving in a space surrounded by three large screens, creating a CAVE-like presentation space. Finally there was an attempt to complete the circle by returning from the simulated world to the physical worlds, by creating full-scale models from the digital geometry. This included low-cost techniques such as the generation of paper facets, and the use of more expensive rapid prototyping technology

    Adapting home : residential development and domestic comfort in Vermont

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    Vermont is experiencing a loss of “ruralness” as social insulation replaces physical comfort as the driver of residential design. Furthermore, the pre-packaged comfort often associated with social insulation requires an upfront cost. The variety of Vermont’s housing stock is limited, as most homes are single-family and 36% of Vermonters are currently cost-burdened, meaning they spend over 30% of their income on housing. Ultimately, there is a shortage of housing that can affordably meet diverse comfort needs. Without the ability to adapt the home over time, in the tradition of the local Vermont home, the house is only compatible with specific familial compositions and incomes. By providing the means to adapt a dwelling at will, residents are able to customize the home to fit their individual physical and social comfort needs, based on income and family demographics. In turn, this infuses the housing stock with a variety of affordable homes in the tradition of the local Vermont home

    East Village at Knutsford: A Case Study in Sustainable Urbanism

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    With increasing pressure to ensure that sustainability features in homes are commercially viable, demonstration projects are vital to highlight the real-world challenges and opportunities for innovation. This paper documents the incorporation of sustainability objectives into the “East Village at Knutsford” residential “living laboratory” development, within the Knutsford urban regeneration precinct, approximately 1.5 km east of the Fremantle central business district in Western Australia. The sustainability objectives for the project include being a “Net Zero Energy Development” using 100% renewable energy and maximizing the self-supply of energy, reducing mains water consumption as much as is practical, and using the landscape design to complement these objectives without compromising a best-practice urban greening outcome. The paper documents the design initiatives and strategies that have been included to achieve these objectives in a commercially viable project and the results of modelling where it has been used to test the design against the objectives to ensure their validity. The key features that have been incorporated into the townhouses component of the development are outlined, illustrating integrated design and systems thinking that builds on previous demonstration projects, incorporating solar energy storage and electric vehicle charging plus significant mains water savings by adopting water-sensitive features in the homes and the within the private and public gardens. The expected grid energy and mains water consumption levels in the homes through modelling compared to the metropolitan average is 80% lower. The project is presented as an important step in the application of available technologies and design features to meet stated sustainability objectives, highlighting the benefits of an embedded living laboratory research approach

    Reconciling the dissonance between Historic Preservation and Virtual Reality through a Place-based Virtual Heritage system.

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    This study explores a problematic disconnect associated with virtual heritage and the immersive 3D computer modeling of cultural heritage. The products of virtual heritage often fail to adhere to long-standing principles and recent international conventions associated with historic preservation, heritage recording, designation, and interpretation. By drawing upon the geographic concepts of space, landscape, and place, along with advances in Geographic Information Systems, first-person serious games, and head-mounted Virtual Reality platforms this study envisions, designs, implements, and evaluates a virtual heritage system that seeks to reconcile the dissonance between Virtual Reality and historic preservation. Finally, the dissertation examines the contributions and future directions of such a Place-based Virtual Heritage system in human geography and historic preservation planning and interpretation

    Remote Sensing Insights into Storage Capacities among Plains Village Horticulturalists

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    Maize was a fundamental component of the diet and economy of Middle Missouri Plains Village groups, sedentary farmers with settlements along the Missouri River during the last millennia. More than a century of study has contributed to our understanding of agricultural production among these peoples, but little effort has been made to consider temporal variation in production. Such an understanding is crucial to examining changes that occurred before and after the arrival of colonists and their trade goods in the seventeenth century. Plains archaeologists have suggested that the storage capacity of Middle Missouri villages increased during the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. In fact, the number and size of subterranean storage pits, ubiquitous features within most settlements, are thought to have grown during these centuries, which reflects greater agricultural production. To further examine changes in production and storage capacity during this centuries-long period, I combine information from historical documents, excavations, and geophysical investigations. At Huff Village, a fifteenth-century community, excavations and magnetic gradiometry surveys reveal the size and distribution of storage pits. Their number and average volume suggest the villagers grew immense amounts of food and contributed to widespread intertribal trade. Furthermore, storage pit excavation data from 20 regional sites, dating from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, indicate pit volumes increased through the seventeenth century. A sharp decrease subsequently occurred during the eighteenth century due to epidemic disease. However, mean pit volumes were significantly larger during the nineteenth century, evidence of the resilience of Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras and the continued significance of maize. In fact, historical documents and remote sensing data suggest the Mandans and Arikaras, successive occupants of an earthlodge village near the American Fur Company’s Fort Clark, traded crucial resources, namely maize, to neighboring Native groups and fur traders during the early to mid-nineteenth century. While traditional colonial narratives describe the period in terms of culture decline and dependency, my study indicates the Mandans and Arikaras acted in their own self-interest and influenced and accommodated colonial fur traders along the Missouri River in the Northern Plains during the nineteenth century

    A Practical Vision of Heritage Tourism in Low-Population- Density Areas. The Spanish Mediterranean as a Case Study

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    Heritage tourism bases its definition on searching for different, authentic, and somewhat unexplored places. Recent literature speaks of the growth of new forms of tourism based on the tradition that seeks to surprise visitors with popular culture, traditional activities, or actions that bring traditional culture closer to tourists. However, the reality is that the influx of tourists to small mountain villages is marked by the most “monumental” historical and architectural values, leaving aside some other minor attributes. This article uses the historical centres of rural villages to place inhabitants’ knowledge at the centre of tourism initiatives. The aim of the study was to develop cohesive and inclusive tourism activities in historic centres by analysing the built environment’s attributes and values. A participatory methodology marks the cultural change to enhance collaboration through transparent and ethical foundations and respect these places’ distinctive character. The study of values helped to conduct an in-depth analysis of local realities to document and map historical centres’ tangible attributes through crafts, traditional culture, and local heritage forms

    The Stone Lab: Decoding Shikahogh Khachkars

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    "The Stone lab: Decoding Shikahogh Khachkars" is an MPhil by design, seeking to describe the role of Khachkar in formation of Armenian national identity through studies of the stone masonry and the notion of a territory, which in this case is represented with the Shikahogh village (Figs. 1 and 2). Although much study has been done on Khachkars in general, no prior research has been conducted on the historic cradle of Khachkars that is Shikahogh. The Stone lab aims to discover and interpret the stories of Shikahogh unknown Khachkars. Therefore the hybrid approach of experimental archaeology and digital reconstruction have been employed at the Shikahogh lab to unveil the hidden inscriptions of these Khachkars as well as to narrate the functions and technological processes behind their creation. This research portrays the driving factors of belonging and identify preservation underneath the context of Khachkar and Petroglyphic heritage of Armenia

    Contribution to the kownledge of cultural heritage via a Heritage Information System (HIS): the case of “La Cultura del Agua” in Valverde de Burguillos, Badajoz (Spain)

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    Modern science is going through a period of important reflection on the role of different agents and multiple disciplines in the management and safeguarding of architectural heritage. This new focus generates a greater amount and diversity of information, so the implementation of a unifying tool in the framework of digital information models would mean a better knowledge of cultural heritage as well as aiding its safeguarding and protection. In addition, it must be taken into account that, for the correct management of information in its broadest dimension, this tool must make it possible to relate alphanumeric data about an item of heritage to its spatial location. In this sense, this article proposes a Heritage Information System (HIS)—understood as a digital knowledge tool—that consists of a relational database and a map manager with Geographic Information System (GIS) technology (a geodatabase). The methodology suggested here sets out the steps that make up the HIS, so that the system can be applied to other geographical elements or realities. For this reason, a study was made of “La Cultura del Agua” in Valverde de Burguillos (Spain), a heritage ensemble that consists of rural architecture and dispersed preindustrial elements, which are currently at risk. The HIS seeks to develop a more complete identification of these elements (individually and as a system) and a justified argument for their being given value and great visibility. This new approach encourages sustainable development in terms of efficiency and effectiveness for the analysis, diagnosis, and reactivation of cultural heritage, always placing importance on the balance of social participation with the territory in which the system is applied, and with global societ
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